By Rick Clofine, D.O., F.A.C.O.O.G.
Women consistently tell me how much they don’t like coming for their gynecologic examinations. It is not the visit so much, rather the exam that causes the distress they describe to me. This is very understandable when considering what a compromise of power this can be for women. There is no more vulnerable situation to be in than walking into a strange office that is set up as a business. Then being asked to reveal extremely intimate information, things usually never discussed except in the most intimate circumstances. And then being asked to disrobe and lay down on a table exposing one of the most core intimate parts of themselves physically and energetically.

If this weren’t difficult enough, it is often in space that does not honor this violation of intimacy. Their experience might have been painful, or humiliating or simply distasteful in the past. This process will always involve an exposure of power due to the vulnerable place it puts women into. For many women, the process has resulted in a loss of power. Set in the right context of healing partnership, mutual education and respect, this process can be empowering. Women can be empowered by the process of this experience if patient and physician carry the right intent and move in sacred reciprocity. Through the process, women can better know their body.

I have found there are many women very dissatisfied with the care provided to them by conventional medical gynecology. I know this, because I have listened to them for the past 20 years. Also because they seek me out hoping I will offer them something different. I think they want different therapeutic tools, but more than that is that they want a different attitude.

I am both proud, and ashamed, of my profession. There have been huge benefits to womanhood as a whole from the medical and surgical advances of gynecologic medicine over the last 150 years. Innumerable benefits. Unfortunately there has also been a lot of wounding of women at the hands of gynecologists. This is consistent with the treatment of women by the society as a whole. Both are getting better.

Traditionally, gynecology was a profession of men caring for women. Since the society was chauvinistic and patronizing toward women, this same attitude influenced everything the profession did.

There is a large body of women currently entering the years of menopausal transition. The baby boomers, and surrounding generations of women, my generation. These women have had a huge impact on conventional medical care because they and not always happy with the care they have received, and they are empowered. These are the women that completely changed the delivery of obstetrical care in this country 20 years ago.

This generation of women ushered in “family centered childbirth”, and most obstetricians were dragged along, kicking and screaming all the way. They wanted their partners (not necessarily their husbands) with them in the delivery room. They wanted their babies by their side and wanted to be informed about all procedures. Maybe they wanted to deliver squatting with no drugs (heaven forbid!). Thus the profession started to deliver women in the same room they delivered in and made other appropriate changes in the way obstetrical care was carried out.

It is the women who demanded these changes that are now facing menopause, and they are not happy!!!

Holistic fits me sweetly. It really honors how I want to approach women. Holistic medicine is the art and science of healing that addresses the whole person - body, mind and spirit. The practice of holistic medicine integrates conventional and alternative therapies to prevent and treat disease, and most importantly, to promote optimal health. The American Holistic Medical Association defines this condition of holistic health as the unlimited and unimpeded free flow of life force energy through body, mind and spirit.